Im coming up to the end of my contract and as I got a fantastic deal to sign up last time I was hoping for more of the same. They couldnt have been more helpful two years ago offering me all sorts of incentives in terms of a subsidy, bonus minutes, a better plan etc. My experience was so good I thought I was back in the UK in the land of free phones and cheap rentals.

Im more than happy with my existing plan. Its (what Ive just found out) the 'old' Smart2 plan. 200 mins, 2500 texts, 1 bestmate and 3gb of data as I signed up during the 3Gb bonus promotion.

As Im happy, Ive not bothered to keep up with the times when it comes to plans so I decide to have a look at the Vodafone site. A 'pop-up' appears so I decide to have a chat with a CSR. It turns out things have changed and I have three options.

1. Sign up for 24 months to one of the new Smart Data plans. The equivalent plan (in terms of mins and texts) is $30 a month more expensive and comes with only 1Gb. The CSR tells me I will lose my 3Gb, whereas I was sure I got to keep it as long as I stayed a customer, and if I want 3Gb I have to pay $190 a month ! There is a $400 subsidy on the equivalent plan but the extra $30 over 24 months dwarves that.

2. Sign up to one of the 'old' Smart plans. The price is a few dollars more whereas the mins, texts, bestmate are the same but I go down to a paultry 250Mb of data with an absolutely poxy $150 phone subsidy.

3. Stay as I am and just buy a phone from elsewhere.

Obviously Ive taken full advantage of the 3Gb bonus and dont want to give it back but I have a smartphone and I use it as such. So is this really the best Vodafone can do ? I thought the deal two years ago was moving in the right direction. 3Gb was truely astonishing and I accept people use phones in different ways but it looks like things have gone backwards since then.

You either pay almost twice the subsidy through increased monthly rentals or full price for a phone with no data to use it properly.

Anyway, rant over. Ill go back to looking for a phone from overseas :)

Option 3 sounds like the best deal, keeping the 3GB bonus rolling over. The handset subsiduies in NZ, and vodafone especially, are pretty rubbish when signing up for a contract. Best buying your new smartphone independently, and keeping your 3GB 'bonus'

Yeah I'm in the same boat... My 3GS which I bought on launch day is starting to have a few faults and I'm looking to resign for a new one, but the deals at VF are not worth re-signing... Telecom looks much better for subsidies... The VF retention team are meant to be contacting me within a month, but I'm not hopeful they can offer me something worth sticking with them.

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